


Laugh, Clown, At Your Broken Love

by NoRoleModels



Series: Unhealthy Romance [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Also Kasumi from P5 Royal's here, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-Hero, Bad Decisions, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Blood & Gore, Blood & Violence, Crime & Criminals, Descent into Villainy, Destructive Romance, F/M, Heroes to Villains, It All Comes Tumbling Down, Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, Never My Fault, Omniscient Except For Ren, POV Third Person Omniscient, Pay Evil unto Evil, Revenge, Slow Burn, Tragic Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Villain Protagonist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 03:58:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15210422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoRoleModels/pseuds/NoRoleModels
Summary: "Sounds like evidence of sanity to me! If someone did that to one of my friends, I'd kill thousands just to get to him!"Ren Amamiya, once the proud leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, is apprehended by the Tokyo Police Department thanks to a united effort between them and Amamiya's former teammates. Now left to face the hammer of justice alone, it is only a matter of time before Amamiya cracks under the pressure and confesses to all accusations leveled against him, up to and including outright murder.His former ally and closest confidant, Makoto Niijima, is confronted by a silver-haired woman in a small interrogation room, having promised to explain everything about the Phantom Thieves' mysterious ability to change hearts, and just how everything between the team and Amamiya could have fallen apart so dramatically.[Villain Protagonist P5 AU]





	Laugh, Clown, At Your Broken Love

**Author's Note:**

> Throughout my playthrough of P5, I was always under the impression that Joker was more of a jerk than he let on, and I always wanted to play him as much of an irredeemable monster as possible. As the game went on, I gradually grew more and more disappointed with how linear the story was and how little opportunities they took with the whole "changing hearts," thing--I mean, what if you were given the choice to kill a Palace-owner and then see how the story would change from there? And given that the MC's Ultimate Persona turns out to be Satan anyway, I felt even more justified in thinking he was a jerk at heart (and yes I know Satan's a good guy in Gnosticism but well I'm not Gnostic so :P).
> 
> So I wanted to try my hand at writing a more villainous version of the P5 protagonist. I've already written parts of a P5 AU on my FF.Net account featuring a darker Joker, but the difference between that AU and this is that this will stick more closely to events in the original game AND feature a much less sympathetic rendition of the main character.
> 
> I have a tendency to gravitate towards extreme shows of realistic (okay bordering on silly) levels of violence, so if blood and gore aren't your thing, feel free to read something else. You've been warned, because in this chapter alone, things already start at like 11/10.

The casino is bright and gaudy, blaring neon everywhere to the point where he's getting a headache from the lights alone. But there's so much that needs to be done, and so little time.

He's standing over the crowds below and watching them squirm at their pool tables and roulettes; though they're all cognitions, their expressions are human enough for him to get off on their marked confusion. Then the suits come in, wearing their shades, all clad in black and marching in like they're the Gestapo, and Joker can't help but be amused. So he lets the arrogance get to his head, because being arrogant is better than being scared, being arrogant's better than being angry.

He's standing up on a platform hanging by the skylight. With what he's got on, he's sure to attract attention regardless of whether he remains idle or not. The whole plan was a bust, he's got practically the whole world on his tail, and there's absolutely nothing he can do to any of them alone. So he decides the best course of action from here is to jump.

The suits see him,  _There he is_ _!_ as the crowd just watches and clamors like the lemmings they are in the real world. He's hopping from chandelier to neon sign to platform and there's absolutely nothing that can stop him at all. The lights keep getting into his eyes but soon enough they're background noise, fading into the rest of the world.

He has to keep moving, he can't slow down even for a second. He messes this up, all this effort's been for nothing. Sooner or later  _they_ 'll be on his tail and they'll tear him to bits. Individually, he's absolutely certain he can take 'em on. He knows every one of their strengths and weaknesses and knows how to get under their skin. But all at once...?

_Fire! He's too dangerous to be left alive!_

Suits from another balcony. Brandishing their guns, they shout and they fire. Zipping overhead, cutting through the air, Joker can swear the bullets've shaved a tenth of an inch from his hair- _who cares_  about them, they can't hurt him, he's got to keep at it if only to spite the lot of them.

He'll be back another day and he'll steal the Treasure and rub it all in their faces. To hell with their compassion and to hell with their altruism and to hell with how they all think  _they're_ gonna stop  _him_.

He remembers a silver motorcycle, gleaming blue and breathing new life into the world. He remembers a golden archer, pointing at him and letting the whole world sink into a black hole. An iron mask, a long red nose. Those two, he has to watch out for. As long as he can avoid them, he'll be completely fine. Everyone else's easy pickings, because they're squeamish and inexperienced and just don't have that same determination.

He continues leaping, and soon enough he jumps upon arches of light that lead him to another platform. Far away from the crowd, away from the skylight, away from the suits down below firing at him. He sees them scramble, call each other out, make a dash towards him from down below and he suppresses the need to laugh at their misfortune. He'll make it out of here sooner than he realized. All he needs to do is get to the back rooms and find a way out from there. One step atta time.

" _Joker_!"

He whirls around. How could they've gotten to him so  _quickly_?

He sees two people at the top of a flight of stairs on the platform. One of them's got a brush of yellow hair bursting out from the top of his head, and a steel black skull on his face; he's clad in tight black leather and in his right hand has an old and battered steel pipe. To his left there's a woman with platinum-blonde pigtails so large they just flow from either side of her head; she's clad in red spandex, has a cat mask on her face, and a whip in her left hand.

They both leap down from the flight and waste no time, Skull dashing towards him--

"Skull!" Panther screams, trying to get him to stop but he doesn't care. He just doesn't care.

He screams to puff himself up, he screams because he thinks it'll give the weapon more power, even though all it does is tighten his muscles and make the blow weaker than it should be. He lunges at Joker and brings down the pipe the moment he's in arm's width--hoping to just conk him on the head to end it all.

But the moment he brings the pipe down, Joker just brings up his arms and stops the steel dead in its tracks. And though he rages, though Skull hates the man in front of him more than anything else in the whole world, the way Joker looks back at him makes him want nothing more than to throw down the pipe and run away. How'd he get the strength to stop  _solid steel with just his arms_?

Skull hears Panther crying out for him, Skull tries to find it in him to remain lucid and tell her to  _get back and get help_ , but he sees Joker  _smile_  and reason leaves him completely then.

"I shoulda left you to rot in Kamoshida's cell all those months ago," Skull seethes, the red veins in his eyes popping out even through the mask.

Joker doesn't think to rebut that, because he realizes Skull's too busy talking to keep watch down below. When his leg hits his leg hits  _hard,_  and Skull's forced to reel back and fall on his side, clutching at his guts and trying to swallow down his lunch-

" _Stop_!" cries Panther, trying to  _reason_ with him now. "It doesn't have to end this way!  _Ren_!"

Still, no matter how much he hammers it home, she won't ever call him by his real name.

He grabs the mask over his face and lets his mouth stretch out into a smile, he lets her see the white of his teeth because she knows it scares her. And the fire dances at his legs as a spark bursts from his skull. He lets her see his red eyes, and all at once the unrelenting euphoria he'd kept in all this time unravels upon the world.

She rears back, terrified and yet furious, and he raises his brow at her. If she was so intent on stopping him, she should've summoned Carmen the moment she saw him.

Above Joker, a spectral thief looms, fifteen feet in height. Black fire spirals around him, making him glow brighter than any of the neon lights behind him. He smiles at her with red eyes and a mouth made of lightning, spouting out sparks and venom. Together, the black wings sprouting from his back span longer than any bus, and the claws on his gloved hands as well as the spiked heels of his boots are sharp enough to cut through solid diamond like butter. His overcoat is a bright crimson, while the blazer he keeps underneath is a black that's darker than the night sky, and a white scarf is piled up around his neck. His leggings share the crimson of his coat and bloom out around the thighs, giving the impression of goblets around his legs. 

Arsène cackles, his voice full of spite and bile, and his laugh echoes throughout the halls of the casino. Joker's eyes are pure and they are blazing and they lock Panther's legs in place.

For the briefest of moments, something flashes in her eyes that looks like pity. But it disappears and all intention of merely _subduing_ him fades along with it.

"Carmen."

Something flourishes above Panther, then and there. As tall as Arsène, she wears a black jaguar's mask with pink spots; her eyes are golden, eyelids blue, eyelashes red. Her pigtails are black and spiral out the back of her head, undulating like tornadoes. She wears a black corset covered in pink hearts; it exposes her cleavage all the way down to her navel, revealing bright purple skin. Roses as large as a man's head settle at her waist and below that lies a crimson skirt made of petals, one that stretches down to her ankles. In place of a whip she wields a thorny stem wrapped 'round the necks of two diminutive knaves with gigantic hearts for heads, one of whom she's stepping on with black heels.

Carmen lets out a laugh of her own as Panther glares at the person she once called a friend, and lunges forward on a silent order.

Arsène charges as well, his master following suit right from beneath him--Joker dashes forward, managing to  _somehow_ reach ten feet in just a single step and dives under Carmen with a slide. Arsene's now got Carmen in a headlock and Joker's buckling his legs ready to  _pounce,_ Panther has to act quickly or Joker _will kill her, kill her like he's killed--_

 _"Stop!"_ she cries again as a  _CRACK_ noise blasts out.

Her use of the whip was a last-second maneuver that she didn't think would work, but it did. The red lash on Joker's cheek and the sound he makes as he tumbles off to the side is enough of a sign of that. And all at once Panther doesn't know what to do anymore.

She thought she'd hear him curse. Thought she'd hear him scream his lungs out, rage about how he's gonna kill her and rape her and take pics of her corpse to show to everyone. But instead he just glares at her, he glares at her the same way she once glared at a certain gym teacher months and months ago. Red streaks down his cheek and he just licks it up with his tongue,  _How can his tongue even stretch that far?_

"R-Ren...!" She sees the silver knife in his hands plainly now, and as he rises up off the ground and keeps glaring, she raises the whip half on-instinct. "Don't make me--!"

" _Captain Kidd_!"

A black pirate ship as large as a small car, with jagged teeth and manic eyes painted on its bow, bursts into the world. On the ship is a ten-foot-tall creature with bones for flesh and a bright blue frock adorned with all sorts of steel garments. The skull it has for a face has an eyepatch with a skull over its right eyehole, and in its left rests a ball of fire. A clawed glove in one hand and a cannon for another, Captain Kidd rushes forward as its red scarf flows out behind it and lets its tatters fall.

The bowsprit's pointed  _directly_ at Joker now, because Skull just doesn't want to waste any time. Kidd charges at him, flying directly over Panther and nearly impaling her on the bowsprit in the rush of it all, but luckily she manages to get out of dodge and keep her head intact--

Panther shoots a look at Skull, once she pushes herself back from the carnage, "Wh-what are you trying to...!?"

"Do you think any other way's gonna stop 'im!?" he cries out.

Rubble and stone blast from the ground as the ship grinds against the platform, kicking up clouds and causing divots in the cognitive concrete. But it's clear that the lack of any red smeared across the floor means that no, Joker's body _isn't_ mashed up into paste, that he dodged Captain Kidd, and that it's only a matter of time before he gets to them.

Joker laughs, at least _Ryuji_  gets it, and he dashes through the clouds of smoke with the knife in his hand gleaming white.

Panther's the first to really see him, and again she sees his eyes, and can't comprehend how any human should be able to have them.

" _Get down_!"

Skull pushes her out of the way before she can do the same to him, and the knife of course dives into his shoulder. He wants to _scream_ , wants to _bite Ren's face off_ and beat his head open till there's nothing but red, but settles for just using his good arm to sock Ren right in the stomach.

Ren keels over then as he feels the walls of his guts tremble. Skull pushes him off as he gets the knife out of his shoulder and throws it to the side, running forward--and before either of them know it Skull's got his thumbs digging in Ren's cheek, he's trying to split open the lash and causes the blood to  _bleed_ , causes the red to flow, causes Ren to scream like he's five and for a moment Skull thinks it's the best sound he's ever heard in years.

Skull then knocks him to the ground with a punch, and it only registers after the fact that he used the arm that'd _just been stabbed_ to do it. He doesn't care. He can't care. He's been in a lotta fights like this, takes a lot of shots to the head to knock a man out, and Ren deserves a lot more than even _that_ amount.

So he mounts him on his center of mass and just wails over his face, the steel in his knuckles making a wasteland of welts and scars and bruises. Blood flies as his skin turns purple and lumps form all over, and just as Ryuji thinks he's landing the fiftieth strike--

"R-Ryuji...!"

He turns to Panther. She's breathing heavily, and she doesn't even notice how much her head's throbbing. Skull faces her and is shamed, because the way she looks at him is much the same way he looked at Ren, after what happened with Kamoshida.

He sees Ren just laying there, blood lapping beneath his head. He's breathing, and for every breath he takes a whole glass worth of blood escapes every orifice. Ryuji wants to ruin him more.His heart can't be changed, and he's too dangerous to let loose out in the world. God knows the guy deserves it.

But no.

No, more than anything else, he deserves justice.

'Cause that's the difference between him and Ren. He knows when to stop when he's gone too far.

"I ain't gonna kill you, Ren," Ryuji exhales, deciding to be Skull again. "You can't run away from everything you've made."

Ren doesn't answer him. He just notices for the first time that Skull's eyes are a very deep shade of brown.

Skull's screams are a sweeter music to his ears than anything Oracle's ever let him listen to. With how deep his thumb is, Joker's certain he's managed to blind Skull's right eye, hopefully for the rest of his life. His other hand grabs the other side of Skull's head and forces the body to lurch forward. The back of his head slams against the pavement, and red explodes onto the yellow of his hair.

Seeing this, Joker brings the head up again and _slams_ it a second time, then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth and sixth until the red pools out and and he's lost count. Soon enough his hands are just lathered in red and he's got speckles of it over his face and coat.

"Get  _off of him_!"

Panther kicks Joker in the face, and the fact that she's wearing heels certainly doesn't help.

She manages to get him to sprawl out on the ground, but she's not concerned about that, she doesn't care, she can hear the others coming behind her quick enough, she needs to get to Ryuji. 

She holds his face, "Ryuji, Ryuji oh God please, God please let him be okay, please," her fingers caress his face and she can feel  _Dia_ come out of her nails, but she fears she may be too late. The blood pooling at the back of his head just won't stop, and she can't bear to look him in the sole eye he has left. She doesn't see his chest rise or lower, nor does even a single inch of his body move a muscle.

"Ryuji...!?"

And then she sees something rise overhead. She lifts her head to face it, terrified yet enraged, and it's Arsène lifting Carmen over his head.

Soon enough, Carmen comes down on Panther and the world turns black for the poor girl.

Joker muses that she was right; it really didn't have to end this way. Some part of him, even now, regrets that it did regardless.

But life goes on.

Carmen fades into shattered glass and black fire, and surprisingly the bodies of Skull and Panther aren't corpses, not just yet. They're hanging on by a thread, but they're still hanging on. Joker could heal them right now, but he knows that in doing that he runs the risk of them waking up sooner than he'd like. Whatever. They'll get fixed up anyway. Not like Makoto's gonna let 'em die like this--

Makoto.

He needs to keep on his toes, needs to get moving, if he faces her he won't be able to leave this casino alive--

" _Joker_!!!"

Okumura-- _Noir._

He hears something barrelling towards him. The hairs on the back of his neck stand as he turns and sees something white hot cut through the air, everything's on fire and before he knows it the sound fills his ears--

_**KRAKATHOOOOM** _

 

 

Rocket missed him, just barely.

He feels his ankles scald, he feels his back burn, he feels everything on him sear and sizzle. He has to move. Can't stay still. Arsène fades back into what he has left for a mind as he hears Noir, "He's here! I've got him!"

" _We can't kill him,_ _Haru!_ " Oracle shouts.

"Lady Ann! We've gotta get to her, quick...!"

A balcony. Higher up above him. To his upper right, he thinks; he can't see, so he's relying mostly on hearing. He thinks he can hear Fox and Mona there, too, and if they're all there then Makoto can't be far behind. He has to run. He has to keep moving--

Even when he gets up the stairs and busts down the closest door to him, his limbs feel like wet noodles. He can still hear them, hunting him down, he's not surprised Noir's acting the way she is--he needs to get out. He needs to escape, somehow.

The halls are dark and damp and cold and he shambles through them, his insides spreading out over the walls as he heaves his body against them.

His robes are in tatters, and though he can feel Isis healing him already he just knows at the rate he's at he won't be able to make it out the door without falling over, no matter how much his body heals. So regardless of how far he gets, it's all over.

A part of him thinks it was all over anyway, considering Makoto's on the squad. A part of him, the one part of him he keeps locked away at the back of his mind, thinks back to Skull; it wonders if he could do the same thing to Makoto, and at that he refuses to let that thought go any further than it's already gone.

He manages to get someplace with stairs, and in the hall he's in he spots a room full of computers. People type away, dozens of suits, and one of them's standing up and over the phone, "Find him, dead or alive!"

His vision's still too blurry to make too much out of it, and soon enough he sees a head turn, and then all the heads turn, and then he runs up the stairs as they all get up off their seats.

He's running now, running faster than he's ever run--

Hallways turn from dark to light. He hears the footsteps behind him, the suits lurch and lunge at him, they look like monsters in his unfocused eyes, they loom like giants and screech like lions.

He breaks right and still hears footsteps behind him. He dives through the door at the end of the corridor and finds himself on another balcony. He's looking down, there's people down below. Again, the crowd of innocents in the casino; right across from him is a chandelier and across from that is a stained-glass window that wouldn't be out of place in a cathedral. The stained glass is practically large enough to encompass the whole wall, and as he turns his head every which way, he sees there's no other way out. The suits must've already blocked off the ground floor, and there's no going back with all the ruckus he started all the way back at the original platform.

Meaning he'll have to make it to the chandelier, even though it looks like it's fifty feet away and his legs feel like noodles. And after _that_ , he'll have to make it to the stained-glass and hope the world of cognition'll throw him a bone and make it breakable.

And after  _that_ , he'll have to escape somehow with glass most likely embedded in his ribs and shoulders and eyes and face.

"Don't let him escape!"

Whatever. He doesn't have anything to live for, anyway.

Makoto most likely doesn't even care anymore if he lives _or_ dies.

Why can't he help but think about her and her beautiful red eyes, even up till now.

"Arsène!"

* * *

_**KRSHHHHH** _

 

It's an idea he thought of upon remembering Johanna, funnily enough.

If Makoto could ride her Persona, why couldn't he ride his? His even had wings, so it was even more expedient when it came to stuff like this, really.

Didn't think of that up till now.

Glass in his arms.

His legs, his knees, his thigh. Arsène drops him from over twenty feet in the air because the pain's too excruciating now for Joker to concentrate--

Can't let this go, have to keep moving, always another person out there, always another heart that needs to be changed. Need to get home, need to lie down in bed and heal. Heal and survive and go to work and be free.

Don't think, move. Need to get out of this Palace. Too much at stake. So much to do. Niijima is a stepping stone. Just one more step 'til Shido, one more step 'til the end of everything, and then finally all this will have had some meaning. Nothing matters, nothing matters at all except getting home--

\--but she's not gonna be there, not now, not ever, so what does it even matter?

Spotlights flare and hit his face. He can barely register it, can barely even see. Everything on him hurts, and he just knows that even when his wounds heal they'll leave scars that'll last forever. He tries to move and get himself up off the ground, but he's too weak and his bones are too brittle and everything's just finally caught up to him.

So of course the battalion comes and whacks him to bits with the butts of their guns. Of course he stops feeling everything after the first thirty hits to his face. Of course they kick him, jeer him, make him wish he were dead; after all, he's caused so much trouble for all of them that they believe they deserve the fun they have right now.

Soon a man with a long-nosed mask gets the guards off of Joker and tells them to stop, that police brutality won't do them any favors. The operation is over, and he and his compatriots will take everything from here. It's a joke, it's all some big fat joke that absolutely nobody's laughing at.

Then someone kneels over him, looks over him. Her eyes are red, her hair is a deep shade of dark brown, and a cast of iron is kept over her face. Her expression is unreadable, but from the way she just puts a hand to his head, he just knows it's all over for him now--and the best thing to do is to just close his eyes and wait for death.

He thinks about her, her and her beautiful red eyes, and her dark brown hair, and in the end he wants nothing more than to stay by her side forever and ever.


End file.
